Technical Tips From A NYC IT Consultant

Man, security is getting tougher. When the servers at a well known security firm get hacked, we need to rethink our security protocols and business practices. From Sophos/Naked Security:

Hackers have broken into the servers of RSA, the security division of EMC, and stolen information related to the company’s SecurID two-factor authentication products.

Read the full story @ Sophos.com…Security firm RSA warns that its servers have been hacked | Naked Security.

Time to revisit your facebook privacy settings again:

Facebook has announced that developers of Facebook apps can now gather the personal contact information from their users.

Read more…Rogue Facebook apps can now access your home address and mobile phone number | Naked Security.

President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

If it weren’t for the Wikileaks debacle (nice security there guys!), the fact that government programs can’t be financed properly (Social Security, Medicare, the Postal Service!), I’d say ok, let’s give it a try. But not with this government. Me no trusty.

But they say:

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. “I don’t have to get a credential if I don’t want to,” he said. There’s no chance that “a centralized database will emerge,” and “we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this,” he said.

Yeah right. But ultimately, we won’t have much of a choice if you want to do business online.

Read more…Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans – Tech Talk – CBS News.

Get used to it. Moving things to the “Cloud” is becoming more popular. So will the data breaches…

Company data belonging to customers of Microsoft’s hosted business suite BPOS has been accessed and downloaded by other users of the software.

Read more…Microsoft BPOS cloud service hit with data breach – Computerworld.

We know that Gawker Media had it’s databases hacked, releasing millions of usernames and passwords.

Now spammers/hackers are taking advantage of that story to send out spam emails like this:

Beware…